How do I create a 5.1 surround droplet from Compressor?

In the compressor manual it specifically suggests that the user create a droplet in order to automate the process of encoding and combining split surround files.

"Assigning Files to Surround Sound Channels with Droplets

You can further streamline the channel assignment process by encapsulating the “automatic” method described above in a Droplet."

It also suggests a file-naming scheme to use so that Compressor automatically recognizes and properly assigns each file to the proper track in the 5.1 mix.

No matter what I try, however, the droplets I create in an effort to do this refuse to accept the input files I provide them. The droplets allow me to drag in virtually any audio file (mono, stereo, even 5.1 surround), BUT if those input source files contain any of the character strings that the manual suggests to use, ie. "-L", "-R", "-LFE", etc., it will not let me add them to the source file queue. If I remove these suffixes from the files (although they are followed by file-type suffixes, such as "aiff", like they should be), then I can drag the files into the droplet queue without any difficulties whatsoever, but then, I presume, Compressor has no way of properly assigning these tracks in the output file, so changing the file names is inimical to my objective.

Has anyone done this? I feel like I've tried everything. If I drag the same properly named files into the batch window in the Compressor app itself, it recognizes them any without difficulty and labels the batch as "surround". I have an enormous number of split surround files, however, and I don't want to have to drag each set into the Compressor window manually. I want to automate the process using a Droplet, just like the manual suggests!

I'm haven't tried exporting seperate files for each speaker (L R C Lfe Ls Rs) yet, but what worked for me is just exporting my sequence with a 5.1 surround sound mix. Then, I open compressor and select Create DVD from the menu, drag and drop my video in and submit it. When I play my DVD on my Macs DVD Player it plays with the surround mix I created. Simple as that. I know this is a vague description of how I did it, so if you would like I can go into more specifics.

I have no doubt that what you tried works. My problem is I have been given GB's of sound content in spit surround format (separate files), and there is no way to easily preview or use them. I'm not interested in making a DVD, I'm mixing music in surround for playback on specialized systems (not necessarily DVD). For the sake of convenience I would just like to convert all my files into 5.1 channel uncompressed files, obviating the need for the separate files for each channel. That way I can easily preview these surround files, and implement them in my mix if I so choose.

Compressor's manual seems to indicate that one should be able to create a Droplet mimicking this conversion process relatively easily. I just wish I could figure out how to do it so that the Droplets actually perform the functions I want them to.

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